What if
by El loopy
Summary: A series of chapters dedicated to what if scenarios in the movie. A bit of light hearted fun. Your ideas are being writen I promise. Chapter 11: What if Christine were accused of being insane? COMPLETE
1. Raoul fell off his horse

What if…

**Disclaimer: I don't own 'Phantom of the Opera' **

**Warning: Very OoC. Also a lot of Raoul bashing, some Christine bashing and I make fun of Erik a little bit too. No flames please because I truly love the film and Erik and if you love it as much as I do a little bit of mockery won't upset you…hopefully.

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...Raoul fell off his horse

Raoul woke up with a grunt, swiftly flattening his hair and looked around frantically.

"I didn't fall asleep!" he exclaimed and glanced down to see if his shirt was revealing enough to look sexy in case anyone was watching…unfortunately no one was so he gave a dejected sigh and sat back down on the chair, only to leap up again a second later.

"My Phantom sense is tingling!"

Raoul bolted to the window, quickly checking his reflection while he was at it and looked down into the courtyard. Christine was being driven off in a hired carriage.

"The Phantom must be the driver!" Raoul thought for absolutely no reason whatsoever. "I must save her, despite the fact that she quite clearly wants to be alone as she snuck past me while I was asleep. Blast the inconvenience. Now I'll have to stalk her outside opera house as well."

At which point Raoul raced down the stairs and outside into the cold air.

"Where've they gone?" he demanded of a man who was rubbing his head and not looking at all concerned that someone had knocked him out and kidnapped a customer.

"The cemetery," he answered gruffly.

Raoul, feeling very urgent and important, vaulted onto a grey horse.

'_Ooooooh, don't I look awesome,'_ Raoul thought to himself smugly. '_What a totally slick move! I hope everyone was watching.'_

"Hi ho Silver away!" Raoul kicked the horse's sides, slipping slightly to one side as he did so but masking the blunder admirably, and galloped out the courtyard.

"Show off," the man muttered then yelled sarcastically at Raoul's back, "thank you for asking about my head jerk!" Then finally…

"Wait a minute…bring my horse back thief!"

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Meanwhile Christine was alighting in the graveyard. Behind her she heard the carriage drive off…the question of how she was going to get home did briefly enter her head before being displaced by sad thoughts again.

'_I know_,' she thought, '_I'll sing to all these gravestones about my father while walking really slowly to his grave, that'll eat up some time_.' And with that she commenced.

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Raoul at this point in time was still galloping over the fields.

'_Why the heck haven't I caught up to them yet? They only left the Opera House a few seconds before me and I'm going faster than them and I'm taking shortcuts!!!! It's as if someone out there only wants me to arrive just in the nick of time._'

Sighting a log in front of him Raoul gave a smug smile and urged his horse to jump it, thus proving to the invisible onlookers that he was an expert horseman by jumping a log bareback.

It was however unfortunate that he lost his balance half way over and tumbled off the horse and into the mud.

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Christine had reached her father's mausoleum, speculating as she did so on how she had managed to afford giving him such an elaborate burial when he had clearly left her no money as shown by the fact that she had had to become a chorus girl. Nevertheless Christine walked towards his resting place and knelt on the steps.

"Wandering child so lost, so helpless," came an eerie and familiar voice.

Christine lifted her head with a look of wonder and stood. _'Oh my father's risen from the dead and is calling me,' _she thought happily, as you do, _'It really is a coincidence that he has the exact same voice of the Phantom that's been stalking me.'_

"Come to me angel of music…" the voice sang and began to lure her towards the gates of the vault, swinging them open in a mysterious way.

Now at this point it would have been Raoul's cue to burst into the graveyard and rescue Christine from the terrible Phantom, creating the best dramatic climax possible…but regrettably Raoul was lying in the mud somewhere, so Christine walked straight into the crypt. With a laugh the Phantom leapt from the roof and slammed the gates shut on her, locking her in. With a shriek Christine spun around and shook the bars desperately.

"Let me out!"

"No!" the Phantom laughed.

It was a little time later that Christine got tired and stopped trying to escape.

"So now what?"

The Phantom looked a little startled at this question. "What do you mean?"

"What happens now?" she inquired. "I mean…okay you've lured me into my father's mausoleum but what are you going to do next? You can't keep me here indefinitely."

"Hmmm…" he pondered this for a while. "How about…I don't let you out until you decide to marry me?"

"Oh what a romantic way to woo someone!" Christine gasped with joy, "But I'm afraid I will never agree to marry you as long as my very rich finance is still alive because he has more money than you. Sorry."

The Phantom looked at her exasperatedly then sighed and looked around the graveyard. "Blast it all! Where's that fop so I can kill him and thus automatically win your heart?"

"Right – here - " Raoul wheezed staggering into the graveyard covered in mud and twigs and scratched to pieces. "I – had – to – walk."

"Oh boo hoo! En garde!" The Phantom drew his sword and advanced on Raoul. "You can't possibly win," he chuckled. "I am by far the superior swordsman."

Raoul gave a sly smile, "I'm sorry to disappoint you but I win this duel."

"What? How?" the Phantom exclaimed aghast.

"By the ancient art of cheating by tripping you up and stepping on your sword!"

"We'll just see about that," the Phantom cried and the duel commenced.


	2. Raoul jumped too soon

What if…

**Thankyou so much for the positive feedback for the last chapter. I was scared I was going to get hate mail. A big thankyou to Phantomlvr, Raven Black and Jinks Loather, Virginie, Mystik Genie, Sword Pen and Miss Mary Lou.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own 'Phantom of the Opera'**

**Warning: Raoul lovers turn away now. You won't like this.**

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Raoul jumped off the balcony too soon

Raoul stood in Box 5 and stared at the stage where his fiancée was participating in some rather intimate gestures with the Phantom who had been stalking her.

'_How the hell did we get to this situation?'_ he asked himself bemusedly.

Flashback…

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"**Christine, Christine, don't think that I don't care, but every hope and every prayer rests on you now."**

**Christine sat there and stared at him, "Oh…so no pressure then?"**

**Raoul smiled encouragingly and prepared to leave the room.**

"**Raoul," Christine called after him, "are you sure this'll work."**

"**Of course darling," Raoul drawled. "I mean we're clearly dealing with a very clever mastermind here, so naturally he's not going to suspect anything's wrong when we put on his play after swearing blind that we never would. Also I'm sure he won't notice the thirty odd policemen marching into the Opera House brandishing guns. They blend right in with the crowd of rich merchants and nobility who normally watch these plays. He won't notice anything."**

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Oh…yeah…right…and the Phantom had had the audacity not to correspond with their plans and turn up in the audience where he would clearly be noticed, or turn up in Box 5 where there was a guy with a gun waiting in plain view. No! He had to be selfish and turn up on stage. How had he even known where to come in? It was almost as though he'd written the opera for the express purpose of playing the main character in a romantic attempt to seduce his love in front of a crowd of people...

So anyway, while his bride to be and her stalker were participating in actions not entirely suitable, in fact completely indecent, for the nineteenth Century French stage Raoul just stood there and did a very realistic impression of a gormless goldfish.

'_Where did I go wrong?'_ he lamented to himself. '_Was it the way I never let her out of my sight? The fact that I totally failed to notice her until she became a star? The way I just vanished that time the Phantom kidnapped her merely because it would have required a little effort to go and find someone with a key? Was it the fact that I never left her little gestures of love like roses tied with black ribbon? Or maybe this Phantom guy is just somehow better looking than me…nah.'_

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Meanwhile the audience was sitting there with shocked looks on their faces. In actual fact though they were quite enjoying themselves. Most of the women had their eyes glued to the mysterious guy in the black mask and cloak whilst thinking, _'Whoa! That guy is gorgeous…so much nicer than the other guy who no one seems to care has vanished._'

Whilst the men were frantically making mental notes on seduction techniques and vaguely wondering how the main character had suddenly decreased by a couple of shirt sizes in three minutes and grown taller.

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Anyway, Raoul had decided that he wasn't going to just sit there and let the masked monster dance with his girlfriend so he grabbed hold of the long tasselled rope thingy that hung conveniently down from Box 5 and swung out into the audience like Tarzan, complete with arrrrrrrrarrrrrrrrrrrrrrarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr noises.

It was at that moment that Christine suddenly realised that a totally hot masked Phantom was promising his love to her, gently stroking her cheek and would probably kiss her at any conceivable moment. So she did what any normal girl would do…she ripped his mask off and thus humiliated him in front of the political elite of France. Having previously witnessed his atrocious temper regarding his face disfigurement she was therefore totally not expecting him to be angry this time, even though the number of witnesses had increased to the population of a theatre.

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Erik stared at the girl he loved with furious eyes, filled with pain and betrayal, and for some unfathomable reason this treachery made him want to marry her all the more. They say love is blind and it must have been in Erik's case as he clearly couldn't trust Christine as far as he could throw her.

Anyway, being the genius that he was he already had an escape plan in place – _'It is almost as though he'd planned to kidnap Christine,_' Raoul thought to himself. With a fluid movement Erik drew his sword and slashed through a rope, which dropped him and Christine through a trapdoor he'd made sure they were standing on, and dropped the Chandelier that was suspended from the ceiling.

"Nooooooo!" Firmin yelled in dismay. "Not the Chandelier! If it breaks we can't sell it for scrap metal!"

Raoul was still struggling through the front row mumbling 'excuse me' every so often. He didn't notice the chandelier come down and people run away screaming. All he noticed was that his path was now clear…and the Phantom had vanished…along with his fiancée.

"Hmmm," Raoul scratched his head in bewilderment as to what to do next when a creaking sound reached his ears. He looked up just in time to see the giant ceiling ornament crash down on his head and crush him into oblivion.

"We're ruined Andre! Ruined!" Firmin shouted, totally unmindful of the fact that people were dying due to being trampled and that one of their cast had been kidnapped.

The stage meanwhile had suddenly spontaneously combusted when the chandelier hit it, almost as if the curtains had been soaked in petrol…which Erik probably had done…had petrol even existed that is…

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Back stage everything was confusion with people running around all over the place. Firmin was having an argument with Andre about who was to blame when Carlotta ran in and threw herself on Piangi's dead body that everyone else had failed to notice and started crying.

"Piangi my love!!!!!" she wailed.

Andre broke off his conversation and stared at her for a moment.

"She was in love with him? Why did no one mention that subplot before?" Then he turned back to Firmin and continued his argument. "Why didn't someone shoot him?!?!?!?!" he yelled, obviously talking about the Phantom.

"Because that would've caused mass panic!"

"You don't call this mass panic?" Andre exclaimed, gesturing at the weeping women, violent mob brandishing pitchforks, burning wreckage and other such signs of chaos. "Besides if no one was going to actually shoot him why did the Police have huge guns that made them conspicuous?"

Firmin opened and shut his mouth a few times then gesture wildly and mumbled something about scrap metal.

"Also," Andre pondered, "this place is burning down and the windows are exploding but everyone seems completely oblivious to this and wants to go further into the inferno to capture some guy! Am I the only one who sees that this makes no sense?"

Andre found that he was talking to thin air as Firmin had already picked up a pitchfork and was spiking it into the air yelling, "Down with the Phantom."

Andre sighed at a loss as to what to do.

Madame Giry was also at a loss as to what to do. Raoul had not turned up and ordered her to show him where the Phantom was as she had expected and now she was wandering around aimlessly at a loose end.

Meg, on the other hand, decided to actually do something for a change, something other than be a nosy parker, make sympathetic faces and gasp that the Phantom was in the building. Meg was going to take action.

'_Okay, so I'm wearing the tight leather trousers. Do I need anything else? Nope, don't think so. I can't believe that Christine has just been kidnapped by the Phantom. Why does she get all the guys? Bah. I'll show her. I'll turn up at that underground lair looking damn sexy in these trousers and the Phantom won't be able to resist.'_

With that she prepared to go down into the Phantom's lair via the mirror. Unfortunately the mob spotted her and started to follow. Thinking that they'd back up her excuse that she was going down to save Christine she let them.

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_Meanwhile down in the lair things weren't going as well as Erik had planned…_

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Christine tapped her foot impatiently on the rock floor. Raoul had still failed to show up and save her – something that she considered very selfish. She was of course ignorant of his recent death.

Erik, on the other hand, was desperately trying to think of a back up plan in order to get Christine to marry him, as the blackmail card clearly wasn't going to work without the Fop. He had thought Raoul would follow him due to the fact that he couldn't seem to let Christine out of his sight for more than two minutes without screaming and hyperventilating but he'd failed.

"So now what?" Christine asked finally. "I'm in the wedding dress. What's next?"

Erik looked at her again. Maybe if he stared at her hard enough she'd get uncomfortable and shut up.

"Firstly I don't see a priest," she continued, "so you're going to have to take me into the light of day, which I know you hate. Secondly, how are you going to make me say yes at the altar?"

"That's what the fop was for," Erik muttered under his breath.

"You know, for a genius you certainly haven't thought this through."

Erik glared at her. He'd already tried the pity card, telling her the sob story of his terrible childhood and the hatred he'd had to deal with, but all he'd received from her for his pains were some degrading statements concerning distorted souls…on the plus side she wasn't bothered by his face any more.

The sounds of the mob were fast approaching.

Rapid splashes filled their ears and Meg came bounding into view, trying to stay that little bit ahead of the murderous masses. She stopped at the gate and looked at Christine.

"Oh…Christine…I am so relieved that you are okay," she said mechanically, sounding distinctly unrelieved and very disappointed.

"Ah, I think my dear, we have a guest!" Erik exclaimed, suddenly back on track. He opened the portcullis and let Meg wade through. "Mademoiselle, this is indeed an unparalleled delight. I had rather hoped that you had come, and now my wish comes true, you have truly made my night."

Meg preened a bit at this, totally missing the sarcasm, and looked very smug…until the portcullis came crashing down behind her and she suddenly found herself tied to it and almost being throttled.

It was at this point the mob arrived but it was a little bit too late too do anything now as the gate was down and there was no way through.

"Start a new life with me, buy her freedom with your love, refuse me and send your friend to her death. This is the choice. This is the point of no return."

Christine looked at him askew, "This is a little desperate Erik…I thought you could do better than this."

He shrugged, "I grow impatient, make your choice."

Christine tapped her chin thoughtfully. "Well…to be honest she hasn't been all that much of a great friend…always whining on and on about the Phantom and she acted like I was crazy when I told her that my dead father was teaching me how to sing…oh and she stole my secret diary last week and read it!"

Meg, for her part, was unable to make any defence to these statements as she was choking.

"I'm sorry," Christine folded her arms, "I'm think I'm willing to sacrifice my friend so that I can marry the very rich Raoul."

"The Vicomte is dead," interjected one of the mob. "He was squished by the chandelier."

Christine froze for a moment, letting this information sink slowly in.

"Oh…" she said finally, "oh…well in that case my choice suddenly becomes easier." She walked towards Erik who hovered nervously with the rope in his hands, bewildered by Christine's sudden change of attitude.

"I just need to see something," she whispered and kissed him.

Erik nearly fell over in shock.

The mob and Meg just stood there and stared.

"Isn't that the guy who murdered like tonnes of people?" one guy muttered to another.

"Yeah. One of them was her fiancé."

"Well this makes perfect sense," the first replied sarcastically. "I want to know when we can start burning stuff."

The kiss finally ended and Christine nodded.

"Oh yeah. First class kisser. C'mon then let's get married."

"Huh?" Erik was, for once in his life, totally lost. He didn't have time to think though as Christine dragged him off to one of the mirrors, leaving everyone else behind.

"We'll have a big wedding in one of those fancy churches, I know you have enough money stored away somewhere after that huge salary you received, anyway I'll have a dress made of silk and lace…"

She continued to ramble on as Erik mechanically smashed the mirror and led her through it.

'_What on earth have I got myself into?' _he thought.

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**Something I forgot to say at the end of the last chapter was that any suggestions for chapters are welcome.**


	3. Christine was a fortune hunter

What if…

**Disclaimer: I don't own 'Phantom of the Opera'**

**Warning: Again to Raoul Lovers look away. I don't mean to keep writing these, honestly. **

Christine was a fortune Hunter

"Start a new life with me. Buy his freedom with your love. Refuse me and you send your lover to his grave. This is the choice. This is the point of no return."

Christine stood up to her waist in water and looked despairingly from one to the other, taking a very long time to make a very easy decision. Easy because the choice is pretty obvious, to have someone's murder on your head and live out the rest of your days feeling eternally guilty, miserable and lonely, or to save someone's life and live out the rest of your days with someone who loves you more than anything.

Nevertheless, Christine was finding it difficult to make up her mind.

"Don't give your life away for my sake!" Raoul called desperately (really hoping that she would but deciding not to say that).

"You try my patience. Make your choice." Erik hissed at Christine.

Christine tapped her chin in deep thought, then, to everyone's surprise asked, "Raoul, have you written a will yet?"

Raoul looked bemused, "Er…yes. But I don't see what that has to…"

"To who have you left everything to?"

He frowned in puzzlement. "You of course."

"Oh good." Christine grinned. "Then, I'm sorry Erik but I choose Raoul. You may dispatch him if you so wish."

"WHAT!" Raoul exclaimed.

Erik just stood there with a baffled look on his face, suddenly not so eager to kill Raoul now that Christine wanted him to. That wasn't part of the plan.

"Erm…are you sure Christine? I mean…he is your fiancé. You're supposed to love him."

"C'mon Erik, you're not wimping out on me now are you? If you make a threat you have to carry it out, otherwise what sort of example are you setting for our married life?"

Both Erik and Raoul stared at her.

"Sorry…did you just…?" they both started to say at the same time then stopped and glared at each other.

"Did I say you could speak?" Erik enquired frostily polite then tugged on the rope and carried on speaking while Raoul choked.

"Are you saying that you're going to marry me Christine?"

"Yes."

Erik loosened his grip on the rope. "Then you'd better let boy go."

"No, no, no, you've got it all wrong!" Christine exclaimed. "I say I'd rather stay with Raoul so then you kill him. Naturally I will then end up marrying you and I'll have all Raoul's money as well. It's a win – win situation for everyone…except Raoul."

"Christine how could you?!?!" Raoul cried out, only to be cut off a moment later as Erik proceeded to quite happily throttle him.

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**Short and sweet. Your suggestions will be put into effect eventually, I've actually started writing them but to finish them is going to take a little time due to my exams but rest assured they will be done.**


	4. There was no All I Ask of You'

What if...

**I cannot believe this! I just typed out all the thank yous and everything then a slip of the finger and it was gone before I could save it! Grrrr! Okay, for the second time...**

**Sorry for not thanking people in the last chapter, I'll do it now.**

**Chapter 2: thank you to Phantomlvr, Raven Black and Jinks Loather, Virginie, Mystik Genie, Sword Pen, Shekiah the Unexpected, Phantomess785 and Erik's Lonely Angel. **

**Chapter 3: thank you to Phantomlvr, Mystik Genie, Shekiah the Unexpected, domino3eb, PhantomoftheBasket and Blueflamewolf**

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"There is no Phantom of the Opera!" Raoul told Christine for the umpteenth time.

"Raoul I've been there, to his world of unending night, to a world where the daylight dissolves into darkness…darkness. Raoul I've seen him. Can I ever forget that sight? Can I ever escape from that face so distorted, deformed, it was hardly a face in the darkness…darkness."

"You've said that same word four times now…" Raoul muttered.

Behind the statue Erik was also muttering to himself. "Well whose fault was it that you saw my face? Humph! And it's not _that_ bad – it's only half the face. I always thought the other half was quite good looking."

"But his voice filled my spirit with a strange, sweet sound. In the night there was music in my mind and through music my soul began to soar…and I heard as I never had before."

"What you heard was a dream and nothing more."

"Will you quit telling me that I imagined it. I am not insane and if you really loved me you'd flipping believe me and not tell me I'm making up things." Christine stamped her foot.

"Raoul!" A voice came drifting up from below. "Where the devil is the Vicomte? We need him to calm the crowd down. He's the Patron for goodness sake! Where is he?"

Raoul looked across at Christine and shrugged. "I have to go."

"Wait Raoul," she called as he retreated back down.

"Don't worry," he yelled at her, "I'll be back in a minute."

With that he slammed the door shut. Christine stood on the roof, shivering slightly in the fake snow.

"Ooooh, I do love it when he abandons me." She rolled her eyes.

"I like the Red Riding Hood look," an eerie voice drifted through the air. "I think the Grimm brothers are going to sue someone.

"Angel?" Christine whispered fearfully, eyes wide. There was a low chuckle.

"Out of interest why did you think you'd be safe on the roof? It's very easy to fall off and there's no one around to see if you were pushed."

Christine made a few squeaking noises but was actually unable to make any sort of coherent answer. She just kept twisting her head around wildly trying to find out where he was. In fact if she twisted it any further around it'd probably come off.

"Why are you doing that?" Erik asked, slightly exasperated.

Christine paused in mid-twist.

"Oh, I'm an owl in the next opera and I'm practising…what do you think I'm doing? I'm looking for you so you can't sneak up and kill me."

"Firstly, you're looking in all the same places. If I wasn't there a few seconds ago I won't be there now." Erik appeared on top of a horse statue and leapt to the ground, making Christine shriek. "Secondly," he continued, "why would I kill you? That would totally defy the point of you starring in the opera."

"Well, I thought you were going to kill me…" she replied sulkily.

"Because I couldn't have done that when you were in my lair?"

"Erm…well, well, you killed Buquet!" she shouted accusingly like a petulant child.

"But I did that for you…"

Christine gave him an incredulous look. "What?"

"You know, so you could become a star. I thought you'd be happy."

"Why the hell would I be happy that you killed someone in my name? The roses were nice and so were the letters. Even the kidnapping had its special moments so why did you have to ruin it all by murdering someone?"

"I don't know why everyone's making such a fuss," Erik sighed. "Nobody even liked him."

Christine opened and shut her mouth like a goldfish. "That's…that's…THAT'S NOT THE POINT!!!!!" She sighed and rubbed at her temples. "Okay, looks like I'm going to have to teach the basic principles of right and wrong."

Erik looked scared.

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_Meanwhile somewhere in the Opera House…_

"Hey Raoul."

Raoul blinked at a chorus girl standing in the corridor. "Hello…"

"Where's Christine?" she asked with a scary smile.

"On the roof," he answered warily.

"Oh, I'm surprised you're not with her. I bet it's really romantic up there. The perfect place to propose."

Raoul stared at her aghast.

"Oh and the Phantom's probably hiding up there as well. Well bye." She skipped off up the corridor.

Raoul continued to stare for a moment then screamed "Dammit!" and bolted back up the stairs.

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"Okay, so what have we learned?" Christine asked in her schoolteacher voice. There were doodles in the snow that she'd drawn with her finger in order to get the point across. Erik stood sulkily with his arms folded, a scowl on his face.

"Killing people is wrong," he said moodily, "even if they deserve it."

"Correct," Christine sighed. '_Finally!'_ she added in her head. "Well done."

Erik suddenly beamed at getting the right answer.

"Christine…" the faint voice of Raoul drifted from below.

Erik immediately snarled and went for the Pun Jab. Christine gave him a stern look.

"Fine," Erik hissed and stalked off into the shadows.

"Where the heck have you been Raoul?" Christine ranted as he appeared. "You said a minute…and now I'm late to star in the Opera!" With that she swept past him while he stood there jabbering incoherent excuses.

Just as he left the rooftop he thought he could hear laughing.

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**I do think that had Christine told Erik not to kill people that he would have stopped because he loved her. I did have something else writen here but I can't flipping remember what it was now.**


	5. Carlotta didn't quit

**Sorry this was a long time to be updated. Writers block, not so much on the ideas as the right words. **

**This one is curtesy of Erik's Lonely Angel**

**A big thank you to Shekiah Rosay, Miss Mary Lou, Skoteinos Metamfiezomai, phantomofthebasket, Raven Black and Jinks loather, Mystik Genie and phantomlvr for your reviews.**

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Carlotta didn't quit

It was a rehearsal for Hannibal – that being the Opera with lots of elephants and not to be confused with the guy who eats people. Anyway, it was one of those days where everything starts to happen at once. The old manager was retiring and handing his job over into the capable hands of two new men who had previously been in the business of scrap metal. Lefevre was showing these two around the Opera House and driving Reyer up the wall by being consistently in the way.

"Hmmm…I see," Andre nodded knowingly, "so these people are dancers?"

"Yes, they're the chorus girls."

"Right…so they dance…"

"On stage in the Operas."

Andre continued to nod as if to reassure everyone that he knew what he was talking about. Lefevre sighed. What made two people who'd previously dealt in bits of inanimate objects possibly think they knew anything about running an Opera House? He shook his head and continued the tour.

Meanwhile another event was taking place, that being the arrival of the brand new patron, the foppish…I mean good looking…Vicomte de Changy.

When the unknown Christine Daae saw him walk into the theatre she gave a small gasp. "Oh. It's Raoul. The childhood friend who'd I'd totally forgotten existed until this point. What were the odds that he would end up being Patron of the very Opera House I dance in? We were really good friends when we were young. Childhood sweethearts."

Meg made gagging noises behind her hand then addressed Christine, "If I were a decent friend I'd tell you he's really handsome but I'm in a bad mood. If he was such a wonderful friend they why didn't he try to stay in contact with you after your father died, especially after you were distraught and could've used a supportive companion."

Christine's face fell, "I guess you're right." She sighed dejectedly, but that still didn't stop her doing her wide doe eyes look at him.

Raoul of course was completely oblivious to Christine's existence, despite walking past her several times while she was staring at him very hard.

Suddenly a scene dropped from the ceiling.

Everyone screamed and stared in horror as it drifted with agonising slowness to the stage where it tapped to the floor behind Carlotta and for some reason she collapsed…despite the fact that she'd barely been touched by the piece of cloth.

"It's him! The Phantom of the Opera!" Meg said right on cue. She then looked hopefully at her mother who promptly gave her a treat for saying the line at just the right time.

"Buquet what's going on up there?" LeFevre yelled.

"Please sir don't look at me, as God as my judge I wasn't at my post."

"Well why the hell not? Where were you?" LeFevre barked back angrily.

"Erm…I was hoping you wouldn't ask me that…"

Andre and Firmin were trying to appease Carlotta who was looking scandalised. "Senora…these things do happen…"

"For the last three years these things do happen!" she exploded, "so I'm choosing to quit right now and blame you for this incident even though no one was hurt and you've only been here ten minutes! Until you stop these things from happening, this thing does not happen."

Lefevre chose this moment to make his exit leaving the new owners with a situation on their hands that they couldn't possibly deal with. "Gentlemen, good luck, if you need me I shall be in a pub in Australia nearby laughing at your misfortune." With that he left.

"Goodbye, I'm leaving," Carlotta announced so that no one could be in any doubt.

"Wait!" Andre cried out, in a sudden flash of inspiration. "Senora, you can't leave." He gave a little sob. "Please don't leave."

Carlotta turned back and gave him a scathing look.

Andre fell to the floor and started to sob and wail. "You can't leeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeave!! Please don't leave meeeeeeeeeee!"

Everyone just stood there and stared at the bawling, blubbing mass. However it worked in that it got Carlotta's attention.

"We neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeed yooooooooooou!" Andre screamed, crying his eyes out.

Carlotta was at a loss for words.

"Of course, if you do the show," Firmin finally managed to say between Andre's weeping, "we'll give you a pay rise and another doggy and…and…a year's supply of hairpins."

Carlotta smiled graciously, "Well…if my manager's command."

"Thank yooooooooou!!!!!" Andre sobbed from the floor.

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So the show went on as normal without any further mishaps. Carlotta sang and Christine danced, and Raoul still failed to notice her. The crowd cheered when it was over and removed the balls of cotton wool from their ears. Feeling totally miserable Christine slunk off to wherever it was she received her lessons and started moaning about the unfairness of life to her invisible teacher who she still mistakenly believed was an Angel her father had sent down to earth to teach her how to sing.

"He didn't even notice me!" she wailed at Erik.

The Phantom sighed. "Angel, listen to me."

Christine lifted her head and looked about the room randomly, not quite knowing where the voice was coming from.

"Think about it for a minute." Erik continued. "Is this boy really worth it? He's a fop and he's clearly shallow and he couldn't have cared less about what happened to you after your father died. So why do you care?"

Christine frowned. "Yeah! The guy's a total jerk!" She gave a small sniffle and sighed. "He was very rich though."

Erik decided to drop the bombshell.

"I get 50,000 franks a month not to kill anyone."

Christine blinked, then her eyes lit up.

"Really? That's a lot."

"Yes it is. Would you like to visit my house?"

"Oh yes please! In fact…we should get married, right now."

Erik blinked from behind the mirror. "Erm…a couple of scenes ahead of me but okay. Come to me Angel of Music…"

------------

Somewhere on the street Raoul got the sudden urge to start banging on doors and scream out rudely who the inhabitants were talking to.


	6. Madame Giry didn't help Erik

What if…

**Disclaimer: I don't own 'Phantom of the Opera'**

**Hmmmm...not really humour this one. Not as good as my others at any rate but a filler chapter while the other things are coming along. Its just the clock on it sitting in my documents is running down so I'm just going to post it. **

**A big thank you to Mystik genie, Raven Black and Jinks Loather, Avatarwolf, phantomlvr, PhantomoftheBasket, Sword Pen, Skoteinos Metamfiezomai and Shekiah Rosay**

* * *

Madame Giry didn't help Erik 

Christine practised her ballet moves. _'I wonder if I'd be any good at singing,' _she thought aimlessly.

-----------

Carlotta's voice rang out piercingly through the Opera House. _'I'm so beautiful and talented,' _she thought to herself.

-----------

Raoul sat in his mansion pondering to himself. "I wonder if I should take in a show at the Paris Opera House," he said aloud. "Nah…though I would quite like to be an opera house patron…shame there are no vacancies."

-----------

LeFevre sat in his office and checked the accounts. _'I wonder if Australia is nice this time of year. Shame I've got so much to do here…hey look. There's an extra fifty thousand franks here. I wonder why I thought that I needed to set that aside?'_

-----------

Meg sighed. "I wish there was someone mysterious I could swoon over," she told Christine. "This place is so boring."

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Andre and Firmin sat in their office staring at bits of scrap metal. "Have you ever thought of going into the opera business?" Firmin asked.

"No, I don't have the voice for it."

"Not singing…I mean owning one."

Andre counted out some more coins. "If we did that it'd probably go all wrong. Something totally unexpected would happen and we'd lose all our money. Besides," he made a neat pile and looked at Firmin, "there are no vacancies."

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'_I wonder what would have happened if I'd saved that strange child,'_ Madame Giry thought as she showed the chorus girls another move. _'I feel rather guilty for not helping him out. It's not like he would've caused any trouble.'_

-----------

Buquet was sitting in the rafters when a shiver went up his spine. He looked at the drink in his hand warily. "Too much drink," he muttered to himself. "I just felt like I had a narrow escape from death." For some reason he felt compelled to rub his neck. "I just wish there was some story I could tell the chorus girls so that they'd hang around me."

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Erik sat on a beach on a hot foreign country and laughed to himself.

"I'm so glad I hid on that ship rather than in an Opera House," he told his companion. "I might have had to live in the dungeons and in darkness rather than this glorious sunshine. I also might have ended up falling for some wench who'd ditch me at the earliest opportunity and nearly end up getting me stabbed or shot."

His companion laughed prettily. "It was a good thing you didn't then," she smiled. "You might have become an obsessed serial killer."

* * *

**A/N This is a tribute to Erik. Without him there would be no 'Phantom of the Opera'**


	7. Jack Sparrow were there prt1

**Sorry about my decided absense but I've been to Africa for two weeks and this chapter just took me forever to write which is precisely why its in two parts.**

**I'd like to thank Skoteinos Metamfiezomai, Shekiah Rosay, Elphie89, Sword Pen, Mystik Genie, Avatarded and phantomlvr for your reviews.**

**This one is for Shekiah Rosay who came up with the idea and I'm willing to bet you're not in a piratey mood anymore due to the fact that this has taken me absolutely ages to write.**

**Anyway enjoy.**

* * *

Jack Sparrow ended up in the 'Phantom of the Opera': Part 1 

It had just been a normal day for Captain Jack Sparrow. Wake up. Curse the hangover. Drink some rum. Go back to sleep. Wake up. Drink some more rum. Pick a hat. Go outside. Realise everyone's still asleep. Go back to bed. Wake up. Drink some more rum. Go back outside. Look at the compass. Set new coordinates. Shoot the monkey. Realise the rum bottle's empty. Damn. Go down into the cellar to fetch more. Notice a giant swirling vortex. Hmmm…maybe too much rum.

So this starts as all mixed up fanfics do, with one of the characters somehow transporting themselves via a vortex, magical object, time machine or remote control, into another world. A vortex shall be used here because vortexes are fun. Although a magical bottle of rum covered in glitter could be used too – the glitter is what makes it magical. Hmmm…

All right. Jack had just picked up the magical rum when he spotted the vortex. Now any normal person who spotted a swirling vortex with death written all over it and lightning bolts of electricity spiking through it would think that one: they were probably going mad, and two: to stay as far away as possible. Poor movie or book characters though, on the whim of the writers, for some reason always want to walk into the swirling vortex of doom…or if they're at all sensible and rebel against said impulse the vortex manages to come installed with a vacuum like device that sucks in the unwilling character, for absolutely no other reason than to be vindictive.

Jack Sparrow was not sucked in – that would be undignified. He stepped in of his own free will, not because he had a death wish, but because he was holding the magical bottle of rum. The magical workings of the bottle are unknown; suffice to say, whatever it did, Jack Sparrow stepped into the vortex without a single qualm.

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Jack Sparrow staggered through the portal and found himself slap in the middle of a party.

"I wish I'd known there was a party in the cellar sooner," he muttered, and putting down the magical bottle of rum he headed for the centre of the throng of people, calmly taking a glass of some sort of alcoholic beverage out of someone's hand. He took a sip and pulled a face, "Wine," he groaned and sauntered off in search of something more akin to his pallet.

-----------

Christine was lighting candles to pray for her dead father. Erik, hiding in the shadows, opened his mouth in preparation to whisper words of praise when there was a crash and the whole candelabra of candles fell over, effectively drowning him out. Christine shrieked.

"Sorry, sorry," Sparrow muttered, picking the wrought iron up. "Got lost. I don't suppose you could tell me where some rum is per chance?"

Christine mutely shook her head. Jack muttered 'bugger' and staggered out the room.

Finally alone with Christine, Erik once again attempted to make her think she was going crazy by whispering things to her in a faceless voice. His plan was foiled once again, however, this time by Meg.

"Christine…you were wonderful! Who's this new teacher and why haven't you asked him his name yet? That's just rude."

Christine looked incredulously at Meg. "Stuff the teacher, have you checked out that sexy guy who's been looking for rum?"

Meg clapped her hands delightedly and made oooooh noises.

"Yes," she breathed. "He says his name's Jack Sparrow and he's a Captain of his own ship," she gushed.

Christine giggled and Erik rolled his eyes – slinking off, away from the girly nonsense. He'd wait for her in her dressing room.

"I'm so glad he's here. If he wasn't we might have ended up talking about an Angel of Music or something!" Meg chuckled.

Christine laughed. "That would've been funny."

-----------

Meanwhile Jack had bumped into Joseph Buquet who was sharing with him the secret of the nameless bottle of liquor in the brown paper bag.

"Joe mate, you…are a genius," Jack slurred slightly.

Buquet raised the bottle in the air. "Want to go scare some Chorus girls?" he asked randomly.

"Why not?" Jack shrugged and followed him.

-----------

Erik paced backwards and forwards in front of the mirror, glancing up every so often to check if Christine had arrived yet.

"Where is she?" he muttered to himself. "Her song with Meg finished about twenty minutes ago."

The dressing room door opened and Erik lifted his head. This must be her now. But it wasn't. It was some over dressed, young fop…who'd walked into a girl's dressing room without knocking. That in itself didn't recommend him. The fact that he also walked in spouting some sort of rubbish about someone called Lotte just made Erik come to the conclusion that he had a few loose screws somewhere.

Seeing that he was talking to an empty room Raoul stopped and scratched his head.

"Where the devil is she?" he muttered and stepped over to the mirror, smoothing his hair back as he unknowingly stared the Phantom in the eye. Erik amused himself by pulling faces at the Vicomte until the boy finally gave up and left. At which point, frowning, Erik also left, determined to hunt down his ungrateful protégée.

-----------

"Like yellow parchment is his skin. A great black hole serves as the nose that never grew." The Chorus girls screamed as Buquet lassoed one and snarled in her face. "You must be always on your guard or he will catch you with his magical lasso."

"This person, sounds like a dreadfully bad character," Sparrow murmured from the floor where he was leaning against a bed with a chorus girl snuggled up on either side. Christine was sitting on her cot and gazing with rapture at Jack's face, completely forgetting the fact that she had a meeting with her teacher.

"It's not like anything exciting would happen," she had told Meg as they followed Jack and Buquet to listen to their stories. "I mean what would he do? Kidnap me?"

Suddenly there was a crash and the door flew open as the girls screamed…and held on to Jack. Any excuse.

"There you are!" Raoul gasped staggering into the dormitories, again without knocking. "I was looking everywhere for you."

Christine blinked at him, "And you are?"

Meg sighed and whispered in her friend's ear. "The guy you were childhood sweethearts with who you were moping over earlier."

"Oh yeah!" She smiled. "How are you?"

"Not great," he frowned, irritated. "You weren't in your dressing room and I had this whole Little Lotte poem rehearsed and everything!"

"Oh," Christine gave a little frown, "would you like to tell it to me now?"

Raoul open and shut his mouth. "No I would not!" he spluttered indignantly.

"Fine," Christine shrugged and turned back to staring adoringly at Jack.

Raoul huffed indignantly and stormed out the room.

"Bugger," Jack muttered, tipping his bottle upside down, "Out of…that stuff…Buquet had…erm…" he got shakily to his feet, "…where do you keep it?"

Buquet muttered something about stairs and ropes, and Jack left the room in order to find the stairs and ropes…of course the entire Opera House was mostly stairs and ropes so naturally he got hopelessly lost.

"Maybe I should've take a right at the severed head," he said out loud. "Hmmm, the floors a bit unsteady here…"

At that point the trapdoor opened underneath him and Jack went falling into the dark abyss below.

-----------

Jack opened his eyes to find several copies of himself staring back. He shut them again with a mild groan. "Bit too much rum." When he opened them for the second time the twenty or so Jacks were still there, but he could now see that they were indeed merely his reflections. The walls of the place he had fallen into were entirely mirrors…and there was no conceivable door. He cautiously stepped up to the glass and squinted his eyes at his image before opening them fully again and retrieving his hat from the floor. With one finger he tapped on the glass and listened to the tink tink noise.

"Hmmm…"

Jack walked once around the small room, and in that time decided that there was no escape and he was indeed truly trapped.

"Bugger."

He tilted his head to one side in order to think…when a loud voice boomed out from somewhere above him.

"So you're the miserable piece of flotsam that she exchanged me for."

Jack jumped and looked around for the source.

"You cannot sing, you have not made her a star, you do not wear a mask, you do not wear a cape and your personal hygiene has much to be desired."

"Hey!" Jack shouted back in slight protest.

"Yet she prefers you to me," the voice continued. "Therefore you have to go."

Now Jack might not have quite known what was going on but when someone says 'you have to go' in that tone of voice you know _exactly_ what they mean…and Jack didn't particularly favour the idea of dying.

"Wait, wait, wait, mate!" he protested. "I have a…proposition for you." There was silence so he continued. "Let's say you and I sit down and have a talk about this. Clearly you feel I have somehow…cheated you of a woman, a woman who does not return your feelings no less…but I can assist you. I know a few things about…wooing…the ladies."

The only answer was the click as a doorway opened in the side of a mirror. Jack bowed and scarpered out the room before the mysterious stranger changed his mind.

-----------

"Believe me mate I have no interest at all in your strumpet…woman," Sparrow hastily amended at the look on Erik's face.

They were standing in the middle of Erik's lair and haggling over…well over the price of Jack's life…and the Phantom wasn't really speaking so it was really Jack doing the haggling and trying to judge whether or not he was doing okay by the expression on Erik's face.

"It's quite clear that she has an interest in you though," Erik growled and brought out the Pun Jab lasso.

Jack blenched.

"I tell you what," he said, moving further away from the Phantom and adding a smooth tone to his words, "I'll help you to win the fair lady's heart and you don't strangle me."

"And how would you go about that?" Erik enquired contemptuously.

"Well, you've already made her into a success…so you just need to make sure that she _stays_ a success."

Erik was watching him with a thoughtful expression so Jack barrelled on.

"Furthermore," he added, "if the girl really is that infatuated with me…I'm not going to be staying around much longer." He gave Erik a knowing look. "She'll be distraught…and will need a shoulder to cry on." He raised his eyebrows and smiled at the Phantom. "Savvy?"

Erik was quiet for a moment as he thought this over then he nodded.

"Excellent!" Jack exclaimed and clapped his hands together. "Now, one last thing." His voice took on a conspiratorial tone, "It seems to me that your _real_ adversary here is that _Vicomte_," he drew the word out, "boy."

Erik frowned slightly, "That fop hardly seems a threat. There's nothing remotely appealing about him!"

Jack nodded vigorously, "Oh I agree, but a woman's heart is fickle, and," he dropped his voice, "he does have a considerable amount of money."

Jack smiled to himself as he saw Erik snarl into the darkness as his words took effect.

-----------

When Jack Sparrow woke up the next morning, in an obscure corner of the Opera House, all he could hear was a commotion as each person discovered the letters that he'd helped the Phantom to write the night before. With a sigh at how much his head hurt he leaned back to have a listen.

One of the patrons was reading about how Carlotta was to be replaced by Christine, whilst the other one was talking about a salary…wait a minute! Jack sat up so fast he nearly smashed his head on a wooden beam. The Phantom got _paid_! For a moment Jack considered going into the haunting business, after all, his crew hadn't managed to get hold of any treasure for quite some considerable time…

However his thoughts were distracted by loud female voices.

"'_Do not fear for Mr Sparrow, your Angel of Music has kept him safe from the treacherous plans of those who wish to hurt him…but make no attempt to see him again.'_ What is that supposed to mean?" Christine wailed from somewhere in the building.

"Well at least he's safe," Meg tried to comfort her…secretly adding '_Safe from _you_,'_ under her breath. "I mean we all did wonder after his little vanishing act last night."

But Christine was not to be consoled and continued to howl mournfully.

"My poor Jacky-poo," she wept.

Jack cringed in his hiding place and endeavoured to listen in on someone else's conversation…unfortunately the first that next came to him was Carlotta's shriek.

"Who iz it that writez zuch zlanderlous letterz?"

"Don't look at me," Jack heard the Vicomte whine nasally.

"Who ze heck invited you?" Carlotta shrieked at Raoul. The Vicomte mumbled that he wanted a letter too and he was feeling left out and if someone didn't write him a letter immediately he'd have all their heads chopped off…or just fire them as he didn't actually have the means or the authority to chop their heads off.

Satisfied that everything was going according to plan, Jack went back to sleep and thus consequently totally missed the song convincing Carlotta to keep her part as the star of the play.

It was therefore much to Jack's chagrin that the Phantom once again forced him into helping him to make Christine a star.

-----------

"Genius," Jack muttered, climbing his way up into the Opera House roof. "Terrorising everyone to get what you want. He'd make a good pirate…although it would've been better if the managers weren't such idiots and weren't so insistent about continuing to make everyone's ears bleed with that atrocity they call a singer."

Jack got himself into position, waited for the correct moment during the play then filled his lungs with air.

"Oi! What are you doing in the Phantom's box?" he yelled at Raoul, across the Opera House, having completely forgotten all his lines and endeavouring to make them up as he went along. At the sound of his voice one of the Chorus girls screamed, "It's him! Captain Jack Sparrow!" and they all promptly swooned.

Meanwhile Raoul had stood up in his box and was having an argument with Jack in what could only be described as a shouting match.

"It's not his box! It's my box."

"Is not," Jack retorted.

"Is so." Raoul stamped his foot.

"Is not."

"Is so."

"Is not infinity."

"Is so infinity plus one." Raoul stuck his tongue out.

Jack shut his mouth then opened it again to shout, "Well, you look like a girl!"

"Jack!" The Phantom's voice echoed out severely. "You were supposed to be speaking in such a way as to strike fear into people's hearts, not make all the girls faint!"

"It's the Phantom of the Opera!" one of the recovered chorus girls screamed…before Meg whacked them over the head with an iron pole.

"That's my line," she snarled at the prone body, "and don't you ever forget it again!"

"I'm very disappointed in you," Erik continued, "You've ruined the whole air of mystery. Go think about what you've done!"

Jack blinked a few times then wrinkled his nose. "This is too weird," he muttered. "I'm going to go ask Buquet for some of that liquor."

It was at this point that Buquet's dead body dropped onto the stage.

Jack stared at it for a moment then swore, "Bugger. There goes the secret of the brown bag." With that he slumped off dejectedly.

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Meanwhile, up on the roof…

"Why did you drag me up here Raoul?" Christine whined, shivering in the snow. "Its really not good for my singing voice."

"Christine," the fop declared dramatically, "I love you! Will you marry me?"

Christine blinked a few times.

"No way! Not a snowball's chance in hell!"

Then she flounced off, yelling over her shoulder, "My heart belongs to Captain Jack Sparrow."

Raoul continued to stand in the snow for a few moments longer, mouthing 'a snowball's chance in hell' over and over again to himself, trying to figure it out with a puzzled frown on his face.

"But…a snowball would melt in hell," he said finally, scratching his head.

-----------

"What is it now?" Jack moaned, finding himself once again in the Phantom's lair. Erik was pacing backwards and forwards over the floor.

"I'm going to write an Opera," he said finally, "an Opera just for Miss Daae."

"Wonderful," Jack grinned, "that's lovely. Well I'll just be going now…"

Erik lassoed his leg and tripped him up.

"I need you to help me."

Jack shut his eyes in resignation, knowing perfectly well that any protest on his part would probably result in him hanging from the rafters.

"Six month," Erik was muttering, "Six months ought to do it…with no contact with the outside world."

From the floor Jack put one hand over his face.

"It's worse than being marooned with Elizabeth," he mumbled.

"There's some rum out back," Erik told him absently.

Okay, so maybe it wasn't _quite_ that bad.


	8. Jack Sparrow were there prt2

**Thank you to PhantomBecca, Skoteinos Metamfiezomai, Shekiah Rosay, Lothiriel and angelofmusicxo for your lovely reviews. Here's part 2.**

* * *

_Six months later…_

It was the eve of the Opera House's masquerade ball.

Christine was now engaged to Raoul, having finally been worn down by his persistent requests and hoping that it would make Jack jealous…wherever the heck he'd gone, Raoul for his part was now entertaining the idea that maybe hell was cold and everyone else…were just around doing whatever they were doing and thinking whatever they were thinking.

Having been locked up in a dungeon with a lovestruck, obsessed genius who spent his time spouting poetry and slamming his hands down continuously on an organ that made loud booming noises and reminded Jack unpleasantly of Davy Jones, and also a lifetimes supply of rum, Captain Sparrow was very tired, very drunk and had a headache. He was therefore eager to get out of the dungeon and into the light…it was unfortunate that everyone was singing very loudly, thus making his head worse. On the plus side there was free drink. On the other hand…

"Jacky-Poo!"

Urg! He grimaced. Maybe there was something to wearing a mask.

"Oh Jackie-wackie you had us all so worried."

Jack successfully sidestepped the hug and managed to get a table between himself and the ecstatic Christine Daae.

"I've missed you soooooooooooooooooo much!"

Jack noticed Raoul glaring daggers at him from across the room. Jack grinned and turned his eyes back to Christine.

"The Vicomte doesn't look too happy to see me."

"That's because he knows I'm only engaged to him to make you jealous and now that you're back I'm going to marry you instead."

The blood drained out of Jack's face and he straightened up…then he smiled beatifically.

"If I only I could," he forced out through a tight smile, "I would in an instant…but it wouldn't be…fair…on said wife as I love the sea too much and my ship and I could never betray them." He sped up, his explanation starting to flow more easily, "…so you see Elizabeth I could never settle down and…_marry_."

"Who's Elizabeth?" Christine asked sharply, eyes suspicious.

Realising his slip Jack paused, "Erm…"

"Why so silent good Monsieurs?" boomed out the Phantom, and Jack gave a sigh of relief, silently sliding away while Christine was distracted.

Raoul, however, continued to watch Jack as he weaved his way in and out of the petrified guests, calmly downing their glass of drink and lifting any object that might happen to take his fancy whilst they were distracted. Having taken everything that he wanted Jack promptly left the ballroom in order to find somewhere he could go sleep. At this point Raoul snapped into action, completely forgetting the fact that his fiancée was not actually in any danger from the pirate slipping out of the room but was currently in the clutches of someone by far more dangerous standing in the centre of the room.

"Oi! You!" Raoul screamed, running after Sparrow, brandishing his sword, which he had brought specifically in case said person turned up, the Phantom being dismissed as not sufficiently dangerous or existent.

Jack stopped dead, a frozen look on his face, then swiftly obliterated it and turned to face the angry Vicomte with a big, friendly smile.

"Monsieur de Vicomte, it's a pleasure…"

"Shut up," Raoul waved his sword under Jack's nose and the Captain watched it with wary eyes. "I know you. You want to run off with my fiancée."

"Believe me mate," Jack met Raoul's eyes, "nothing is further from my mind…that Phantom bloke back in the ballroom on the other hand…" Jack raised his eyebrows suggestively and swearing profusely Raoul blundered off to save his endangered wife-to-be, who wouldn't actually have been endangered had he not been such an idiot.

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It could be called fortunate that Raoul managed to reach the ballroom in time, however as the Phantom never actually intended to whisk Christine away yet anyway due to the lair being in the middle of decorating, there was no need for Raoul to hurry so…except the great amusement it caused everyone when he tripped over his sword.

Anyway, some days later Jack found himself inexorably dragged to a graveyard. Quite naturally this completely unnerved him as he wasn't a big fan of graveyards, especially this one, which was endeavouring to be as spooky and mysterious as possible.

"Here we are!" Christine announced quite unnecessarily and with a flourish, like they'd just arrived at a holiday destination.

"Wonderful," Jack beamed fakely. "Erm…why are we here?"

"I'm going to show you my father's grave," Christine trilled and skipped off through the gravestones.

Jack frowned and cast a furtive look behind him where he could swear he could see that creepy, suspicious driver lurking in the bushes.

Jack caught up with Christine and she led him to her father's mausoleum.

"What do you think?" she asked sweetly.

"Erm…" Jack looked around at the crumbling stone and deadness of everything. "It's very…nice…?"

Christine grinned and knelt on the steps. "Daddy, I've come here to ask for your blessing. Can I marry Jack?"

"What?!" Jack squawked at the same time as "NO! I FORBID IT!" bellowed out.

Momentarily thinking that he was going crazy Jack stood perfectly still until a black cloaked figure leapt off the mausoleum and landed in a swirl of fabric on the ground, where he stood brandishing a sword.

Jack breathed a momentary sigh of relief until the Phantom started to advance menacingly on him, whereupon Jack drew his own sword…thought about it for a spilt second…then bolted behind a gravestone.

"I swear I had no idea what she was planning," Jack stated and ducked behind the stone as Erik's sword smashed into it, causing splinters of rock to fly everywhere.

"Christine?" a voice called out and Raoul stepped into the graveyard. Erik froze, sword partially raised, and Jack took the opportunity to get well away from the Phantom's sword.

"Do you follow her everywhere?" he asked the fop as he darted past, "that's not particularly good wooing mate."

"Shut up!" Raoul shouted and swiped at Jack with his blade.

"Will you all stop trying to kill me?" the captain exclaimed, "I'm not interested in the girl!"

"I wuve you Jackey Wackey," Christine cooed from the other side of the graveyard, causing Erik and Raoul to advance with upraised sword arms and murder in their hearts.

Jack glanced from one to the other, raising his own sword and tentatively wavering it from one to the other.

"What about your Opera?" Jack addressed to the Phantom. "That's sure to work, ay? Pure genius. I've heard it mate. Gave me shivers."

Erik narrowed his eyes and lowered the sword a fraction.

"And you, boy…your hair's not straight."

The second Raoul dropped his sword to straighten his hair Jack bolted off into the surrounding undergrowth running like a crazed maniac.

----------

Jack Sparrow did not particularly want to return to the Opera House. However he did want to return to his ship, and as the two were irrevocably combined it was therefore inevitable that he had to return.

It was also inevitable that he would bump into the Vicomte in the hallway, and that the Vicomte would immediately point his sword at the Captain's throat.

"Well hello again _Captain_," Raoul sneered.

Jack smiled forcefully. "Hi."

"It would appear that I'm going to get the privilege of killing you myself. Excellent. Such a notorious pirate, I'm sure I'll be rewarded."

Jack's mind started working very quickly in order to save his neck, which he was decidedly attached to, at the same time as pondering how the Fop knew he was a pirate and answering himself that his outfit probably gave it away.

"If you kill me you won't receive the information I'm about to impart."

Raoul scowled, "Which is?"

"That the Phantom is planning to take the place of Don Juan in his own Opera and thus seduce the girl you're both so desperately in love with for some unknown reason right in the middle of the performance."

Raoul's brow furrowed as he thought about this, "Surely now that you've told me I can kill you though."

Jack beamed, "Ah, but you only know what you know because I want you to know, so dispatching the knower of the knowledge you would consequently destroy all hope of knowing what you could know at the hands of the knower's know. Savvy?"

Raoul frowned in bewilderment.

"Excellent," Jack exclaimed, completely ignoring the fact that Raoul didn't have the foggiest what he was talking about. "So you'll get all your little Police friends in here and come up with a plan to capture the Phantom, then the girl will be so grateful at your rescue she'll swoon into your arms and I'll be free to roam the seas once more."

With that Jack took off before he could be questioned further.

-----------

The evening started off tolerably well. Except that there wasn't any rum…and he had to keep avoiding the Phantom in case he knew about the leakage of certain vital particulars in the information department to a certain prying fop…and he also had to try to avoid said fop…and the girl…and there were armed police everywhere.

Actually, on second thoughts the whole thing was an utter disaster.

"I miss the Pearl," Jack sighed dejectedly and wandered through the Opera House dodging said girl, Phantom, fop and police. Somehow he ended up at the back of the theatre, carefully concealed behind a pillar about a foot away from an oblivious guard.

From here Jack proceeded to watch everything that was happening on stage and deciding that after all the Opera wasn't _that_ bad. The daring tales of debauchery done by the dashing Don Juan were quite entertaining, not to mention 'educational'.

The Opera wasn't long begun though before Jack noticed a significant change in Don Juan's appearance and realised that Erik had finally swapped into the role.

Christine noticed…and appallingly seemed to think it was Jack under the mask. He saw her mouth the word 'Jack' at which point the Phantom uttered a resounding 'No!' then muttered something that looked suspiciously like 'I'll kill him'.

Suddenly wishing that he could not lip read, at the same time as being thankful that he could, Jack came to the conclusion that he had long overstayed his welcome and it was about time for him to be off.

It was at this point that he remembered that he couldn't remember where the '_Pearl_' exactly was.

"Bugger," Jack growled and went off into a deep thought process, completely oblivious to everything around him, including the highly passionate and seductive events that were occurring on stage, until he finally came out of his reverie with one single resounding conclusion. "Rum." Then he remembered that mystical bottle of Rum that he'd found in the cellar of the ship. "Wonderful," he grinned and pulled out his compass. "Show me the Rum."

Now that he had his coordinates Jack proceeded to wander up and down the corridors, letting the little arrow show him the way.

Meanwhile the Phantom had successfully kidnapped Christine, without her ripping his mask off because, due to the whole being distracted by a certain pirate captain, the Phantom was still a mysterious person – who's mask she had not removed and felt no need to - who did not murder people, in Christine's eyes and she was sufficiently taken in by his music and having kissed him quite improperly on stage he proceeded to kidnap her in an elaborate style…much to the disgust of one Monsieur de le Vicomte.

Raoul ran after Madame Giry in order to gain her assistance in the catching of the escaping couple when he happened to spot Jack walking around muttering to himself and to a small object he was holding in his hands. Deciding that it was all Jack Sparrow's fault that he, Raoul, had failed to save his beloved, he made the split second decision that he'd kill the Captain first and save Christine later.

As for Jack, he was intent upon the Compass and not paying the slightest attention to the fop who was stalking him.

"Note to self," Jack muttered, stepping around a policeman running past with a gun, "next time I run out of rum ask Gibb's to fetch a new bottle."

It seemed that every time he attempted to top up his dwindling supply something bad happened and he was a bit tired of it.

At last Jack found himself standing in front of the magical bottle of Rum and picked it up with a contented sigh, then he smiled at it and took a delicious swig. At this point the vortex opened up in front of him and squinting slightly in bewilderment Jack stepped inside.

The vortex sealed itself up just as Raoul came charging down the corridor with sword unsheathed. The plan had been to stick the sword through Jack…but then Jack sort of vanished, and Raoul tripped over the place where the Captain _had_ been standing…and then he stumbled forwards and fell down a trapdoor in the floor and thus found himself imprisoned in Erik's room of mirrors. It doesn't take much imagination to guess what happened next.

-----------

Jack, on the other hand, found himself safe and sound back on the '_Black Pearl_' and as is usual with these stories he had not actually been gone for any considerable length of time at all and no one had even noticed he was missing.

And thus was the ending of another adventure successfully completed and survived by the legendary Captain Jack Sparrow.


	9. Erik danced in the Masquerade

**Confession time: I'm really running out of motivation to write these and the ideas have slowed right down. I'm finding them harder and harder to write. So after this one I've got three more in production and then that's it and I'm taking a break and if I'm motivated again I'll write, but there's a little while to go yet.**

**Anyway, thank you to Mlle.Fox and Skoteinos Metamfiezomai for their reviews for Chapter 8...as for the rest of you /narrows eyes/ I know you're out there I can hear you breathing...**

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Christine whirled around the dance floor deliriously happy. Life was good. She was at a fantastic masquerade ball with her very rich future husband and she looked very pretty if she did say so herself, which she didn't because she was far too modest for that. The only blot on this otherwise perfect evening was her Angel of Music. '_But that's okay,'_ she thought, _'because he can't possibly know that I'm engaged because I've hidden the ring around my neck where everyone can see it so I'm sure I'll be fine,'_ and even better, Raoul had given her a quick snog in front of the entire party, despite the fact that if the Phantom had, by some random moment of spontaneous blindness, missed the ring, he could hardly miss them making out due to the whole 'in-your-face-ness' of it.

Christine spun gracefully across the floor in Raoul's arms when she suddenly found herself…not…anymore. Completely unaware of how it had happened she was dancing in the arms of a total stranger.

"Erm…hello…" Christine smiled in slight bewilderment.

The stranger's lips curved ironically, giving the appearance of a gruesome leer due to the skull mask decorating the top half of his face.

"Hello Christine," the velvety voice whispered before the man reached up and snatched the necklace from around her neck.

"Ouch! Did you have to break the chain like that?" Christine exclaimed angrily, "that thing was expensive and it HURT!"

Completely ignoring her the stranger growled, "Your chains are still mine. You belong to me!"

Suddenly realising who the stranger was it was therefore Christine's cue to do a Christine and unceremoniously faint in his arms with perfectly pointed toes.

From the other side of the room, where Christine wasn't even in view, Meg stuck her head in the air like a Sniffer dog and screamed, "IT'S HIM! THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA!"

Erik winced. '_Man that girl's annoying and loud. Maybe I should kill her off then people won't know I'm around_.'

Meanwhile, on the other side of the room, Raoul gasped. "My fiancée is in danger of being kidnapped!" He took a step forward and cringed. "However I do really need the toilet. Damn. Why did I have so much Red Bull? I can't save Christine on a full bladder…I know, I'll go to the toilet on the pretence of getting my sword. I know that leaves Christine totally at the Phantom's mercy but I'm sure he'll wait to kidnap her until I get back."

With that Raoul ran off.

Erik stood in the middle of the Ballroom, holding the wimp…I mean limp…Christine, and eyed the rest of the assembly.

"I would insult you all subtly in eloquent words, however I spent too much time on doing my fancy dress make up so I didn't have the chance to form said insults, which means I'm just going to say whatever comes into my head." Erik cleared his throat authoritatively. "All right, I've written an Opera that's flippin' brilliant, a work of pure genius and I don't want you idiots messing it up.

"Miss Shrieking Shriekerson can't act her way out of a paper bag. She makes preschoolers look like professionals, only they have fewer tantrums."

Carlotta's mouth dropped open and she did a very good impression of a goldfish.

Feeling mischievous, Erik prodded her head dress with his sword (a great feat considering he was still holding Christine) and rattled it.

"I'm trying to flush out any birds that might have nested in that thing."

Seeing his 'girlfriend' being so viciously attacked, Piangi stepped forward, totally unarmed, and narrowly avoided getting skewed on Erik's sword.

"Piangi, you are fat, end of story. If you don't lose weight I'm going to kill you…actually I'm going to kill you anyway so just lose weight so I can impersonate you."

The Phantom stepped towards the managers who squealed and backed off, showing the Phantom that they wouldn't take any nonsense from him.

Erik sneered.

"I don't even know why you two are still here. You don't even know what a stage is."

"Yes we do," one of them piped up bravely (Erik could never tell which one), "it's the shortened name of one of those things you catch to go places."

Erik rolled his eyes, "Go to Australia like that other manager." Then he grinned and looked lovingly down at Christine. "And as for our star, miss Christine Daae…" Christine let out an ear shattering, unladylike snore. Erik jumped and stared at her. "Okay…not fainted…just asleep."

At this point Raoul ran into the room. With a swish of his cloak Erik vanished into a hole in the ground.

"Damn!" Raoul swore and jumped in after him, completely oblivious to the fact that Erik could quite easily be waiting at the bottom with a very long piece of rope. As it was, however, Erik had his hands full of Christine, which left Madame Giry to save Raoul from the hall of mirrors where he was swishing his sword at shadows and murderously slaughtering empty air. That fiend!

Instead of thanking Madame Giry for her efforts in saving him, Raoul demanded she take him directly to the Phantom, completely rebuffing her story of how Erik had gotten into the Opera House in the first place and letting forth a stream of complaints, not the least of which was, "Who would've thought that a guy wearing a mask would turn up to a masquerade."

"This is as far as I dare go," Madame Giry told Raoul at last, eager to be rid of him. Raoul immediately bolted off down the stairs and promptly fell into a trap.

"There was a reason I wouldn't go any further, idiot!" Madame Giry muttered and turned away.

-----------

Meanwhile, down in the dungeons, Christine was just waking up from a lovely nap…in the swan bed. Immediately she came to the conclusion that every time she fainted she teleported herself to this bed, which was very clever of her.

"Oh good, you're awake," Erik walked into the room and threw a wedding dress at her. "Put that on, we're getting married."

After complacently doing exactly as Erik told her to, after he had walked out of the room, Christine then followed him out into the main lair.

"You do realise that I'm not actually going to marry you," she pointed out for clarification purposes, "Raoul's going to be here to rescue me any minute."

It was at that point that Raoul appeared on the other side of the portcullis looking like a drowned rat.

"Wait, I think my dear, we have a guest," Erik sneered.

"Yeah I can see that," Christine raised her hand and wiggled her fingers. "Hello Raoul."

"This is indeed an unparalleled delight." Erik continued. "I had rather hoped that you would come, and now, my wish comes true, you have truly made my night."

"Wait a minute," Raoul bellowed, "If you wanted me to get here then why did you set off the traps and also what is the point of a trap to stop an intruder if they can get themselves out of the trap without even alerting you to the fact that they are coming."

Erik was momentarily flummoxed by this and just stood staring at Raoul. Finally he found his tongue and sighed.

"I've just realised that while you're alive I'll never be able to perform 'Don Juan'. There goes all that hard work that I put into writing that Opera for Christine."

"You wrote an Opera for me?" Christine smiled sweetly enquiring and excited.

"Yes," Erik sighed, "you would have loved it. The words were seductive, perfectly chosen, and with the music and my voice, you would've fallen at my feet in an instant."

"That's sick," Raoul said with a repulsed look on his face, "You were going to seduce her using music?"

"What woman _doesn't _want to be seduced by music?" Erik retorted calmly.

"I can think of a few!" Raoul yelled back.

"Does that included yourself?" Erik enquired innocently.

Raoul stood there opening and shutting his mouth for a few moments then…

"You freak! Relying on your music to do what you can't."

Erik suddenly flared up in anger. "Well at least I don't stalk people!"

"Well I don't have two way mirrors in girl's dressing rooms you pervert!"

"You sleep outside her bedroom!!!!"

Both males just stood there glaring at each other, breathing heavily from all the shouting whilst Christine stood twiddling her thumbs and staring up at the ceiling.

"It's very pretty in here."

Both males looked at her then back at each other.

"Want to flip a coin?" Raoul asked.

Erik shrugged, "Yeah. Why not?"

So Erik let the portcullis up and Raoul waded onto the land. He then drew out a coin from his pocket and flipped it. Erik called 'heads' and lost.

The two stood staring at the little bit of metal for a few short moments, then Erik looked up.

"You do know what this means don't you?"

Raoul nodded with a huge grin on his face.

"Yup! I get Christine."

The Phantom slowly reached for his PunJab Lasso.

"That's right, you did…"

Erik then promptly killed Raoul and thus won Christine's heart fair and square…well…of sorts.

* * *

**Oh yeah, the appalling 'Stage' joke - if you can call it a joke - I was refering to a Stagecoach which for some bizarre reason I thought was shortened to Stage in conversation but actually cannot now remember why...**


	10. Erik had an IPod

**Look I'm heading off to uni tomorrow and I wanted to get this done before I left. Due to one of my possible chapters giving me zero inspiration, when I actually sat down to write it – and I mean I couldn't even write down a starting sentence –the number of remaining chapters for this has reduced to two, so the chapter after this will be the last and it is actually finished. This one is for PhantomoftheBasket.**

**Thank you to Raven Black and Jinks Loather, Skoteinos Metamfiezomai, Avatarded, Mystik Genie, Lothiriel, Phantomof the Basket, Miss Mary Lou, Whispers of music and Lady Moon Dragon for your lovely reviews.**

**Disclaimer: Don't own characters or the songs.**

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Erik had an I-pod 

We are going to bring back our old friend the swirling vortex. Why? Because as I said before, vortexes are fun. In this case some scientists in the 21st Century had been messing with some technological gadgety things when they happened to accidentally rip a hole in the fabric of reality thus causing a gateway between the real world and that of fantasy. They then did something very silly in that they decided to tell everyone and were promptly locked up for their trouble. Meanwhile the niece of one of said scientists – merely a niece because its always a niece – unceremoniously nicked off with the technology and harnessed it into a small household object, a remote control to be precise, hence the reason that it was listed under items that transport people between worlds in the Jack Sparrow chapter. Anywho, on one cold, rainy day the niece in question was bored and decided that it would be fun to mess around with some book characters by making them do bizarre things, which is a very cruel thing to do when one is bored…and if anyone spotted the irony there, Kudos to you. She decided that rather than inflicting them with her presence she'd freak them out by dropping random objects into scenes in their book. It was while she was cackling evilly to herself about this diabolical plan that she tripped and fell on the remote, causing the hole to appear, simultaneously knocking over a table and causing the objects on it to tumble into the swirling vortex. It wasn't until after the rip had sealed itself the niece realised that her I-pod was one of the items…

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Our hero – the I-pod – landed smack in the middle of the Phantom's lair as he was attempting to compose his theme tune. The small electronic device clattered to the candle lit table on top of sheets of music and turned itself on, having fallen against the 'on' button.

Erik was absorbed in hitting his organ in order to discover the perfect introductory tune that would be dramatic enough and would make half the listening population leap ten feet in the air.

The I-pod was on at top volume and due to the general echo and usual silence of the lair Erik would have been able to hear it clearly had he not been drowning the music out. Consequently, when he banged his head against the keyboard in total despair and didn't move, the dulcet tones of the I-pod reached his ears the moment the echoes of crashing faded out.

Raising his now aching head Erik proceeded to hunt down the source if this mysterious music. When he found the small device he picked it up carefully between a thumb and finger and dangled it warily in front of his eyes. He liked to think himself a rational man and did not believe in witchcraft, however the appearance from nowhere of a small rectangular object that was flatter than a slice of bread, from which strange sounds emerged, was sufficient to shake the belief just a little bit.

However, after repeatedly poking the device with a candle stick Erik decided that it was harmless and promptly set to examining it, swiftly followed by dismantling it when he realised it was something manmade.

Some little time later the Phantom sat in his chair and stared fiercely at the now reassembled I-Pod.

By trial and error he had succeeded in mastering the buttons and now had it playing on top volume so he could hear it out the earphones without putting them in.

He was actually listening to see if he could spot the perfect theme tune for any dramatic entrances or events he had to conduct. Little did Erik know that while he was searching for said theme tune, he was in actual fact, completely missing the introduction of the two new managers, but in the great scheme of things he probably wouldn't have minded because without a good theme tune it was totally pointless to go around causing terror. Terror in complete silence was not at all frightening.

It was at this point that the 'Phantom of the Opera' theme tune came on. Erik jumped out of his skin and then listened for a moment, nodding sagely to himself and deciding that it was just the intro he needed to make a dramatic entrance…of course by the time he decided this the I-Pod had moved on, and being on shuffle it took Erik a frantically long time to search through the entire thing and find the tune again. In this time he heard more songs and picked out a singer that he particularly liked the sound of and endeavoured to find her to help him compose his music and bring it to life.

So, now complete with his very own theme tune Erik set out to hunt down a person that he had picked out from the I-Pod, known as Christina Aguilera.

---------

Christine was sitting in the chapel praying for her father and keeping her ears peeled for any sound of her Angel of Music who hadn't spoken to her for quite sometime and whom she was a tad miffed at because she was sure he could've got her that leading role in Hannibal if he'd wanted to. That was when she heard his sweet, melodious tones echo through the room.

"Christina. Christina."

Christine jumped to her feet, ecstatic. "You came teacher! You came!" she exclaimed.

There was an expectant silence.

"Christina?" came the baffled voice again.

"No," Christine shook her head. "It's Christine. I thought you knew that by now."

"Christine!" the voice scoffed. "I'm looking for a Christina Aguilera!"

There was the sound of footsteps fading away and Christine was left sitting in the dark with a puzzled frown on her face.

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Erik was unable to find Christina Aguilera and so shut himself up in his dungeon and determined to write her an opera that she could perform. Surely if he demanded that the managers make Christina Aguilera sing it then they'd hunt her down at all costs.

Now, during this dedication in writing an opera Erik was completely oblivious to everything that was going on inside the opera house, therefore Christine was still a chorus girl, Raoul was still oblivious to her existence and Buquet was still alive.

After just over three months of rigorous hard work and creativity Erik had finally finished his opera. He gave a relieved sigh as he put it quietly to one side and sat perfectly still for approximately five minutes, in which time the euphoric feeling of finishing something dwindled away and a scowl was left on his face.

"I'm bored…" he muttered and then turned to his best friend, the I-Pod, who had been quietly inspiring him this whole time, playing virtually non-stop (he had somehow figured out a way to charge the batteries) while Erik was in the same room.

"What should I do?" he asked the I-pod imploringly.

'_Its murder on the dance floor_

_But you better not kill the groove.'_

Erik blinked. The I-pod wanted him to kill someone at the masquerade…as long as it wasn't this 'groove' person. He shrugged. That wouldn't be a problem…that Buquet chap had what was coming to him.

'_Gonna burn this goddamn house right down'_

He frowned. He wasn't quite prepared to do that…yet. Maybe later.

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Consequently the masquerade was a very pleasant evening until Buquet's corpse dropped onto the dance floor and everyone ran away screaming.

Erik then put in his appearance, playing his theme tune using the I-Pod, which he had adapted to play its music without the earphones – several years ahead of its time.

"I have an opera here," he waved it in the air, "and I've spent the last six months of my life completing it, so now I'm going to throw it carelessly on the floor because for some reason it makes me look cool."

Erik then promptly did as he said and a small group of fangirls, who had not run away, all swooned.

"His total disregard for his own work is so _hot_," one cooed.

Erik gave all the fangirls a strange look then turned to the managers, who had also not run away, conveniently.

"I want you to put this on with Christina Aguilera as the star. No excuses."

Then Erik promptly vanished in a cloud of smoke…of course the hole in the floor gave away where he'd disappeared to and thus ruined the whole spooky mystique.

This left the managers staring at each other in bewilderment.

"Christina who?"

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Some considerable time later when all the preparations were finally completed and the audience was in the Opera House, Erik stood in the wings and stared in horror as Christine swayed onto the stage swinging a basket from her had carelessly.

"What?!" the Phantom bellowed and strode on stage, completely missing his cue. The audience all perked up thinking that this drama was part of the Opera and much more exciting than that whole singing malarkey.

"Who is this?" Erik addressed the managers, jabbed his finger at Christine whose bottom lip quivered and tears welled up in her eyes.

"I'm your former student," she sobbed and threw herself at Erik's back holding onto him and wailing, "I love you Angel! Why did you go away?"

Erik rolled his eyes and attempted to prize her off muttering 'fangirl' under his breath, not that he knew what one was.

"I – asked you - " he grunted as he tried to unlock Christine's fingers which seemed to be glued together around his chest, " – to hire – Christina Aguilera - "

Finally he gave up and turned to Christine, picking her up and throwing her unceremoniously over one shoulder promptly dumped her in the orchestra pit.

"But we don't know who that is!" one manager replied. "We thought you meant Christine."

The Phantom shook his head and sighed, "This will simply not do." With that he walked off the stage and chopped at one of the ropes. It just so happened that this rope held up the chandelier and it crashed to the floor sending the Opera House up in flames.

Over the roaring tongues of fire and screams of the fleeing masses a singing voice could be heard.

_Burn baby burn, _

_Disco inferno_

_Burn baby burn_

Erik was chuckling to himself and singing along to the I-pod when a giant black vortex opened up in the ceiling above him and a body dropped through landing ungracefully on the floor in front of him.

Erik blinked.

The figure got up and spotted the I-Pod.

"That…is mine," she stated calmly. "I would like it back." She held out a hand and Erik hissed at her.

"Precious is mine." He clutched the I-Pod to his chest and started to coo to it. "Isn't it precious? Precious doesn't want anything to do with smelly vortex girl now does precious?" He stroked the casing lovingly as the stranger – who you may have guessed was the niece – looked on in something like bewildered disgust.

"Listen," she said finally, oblivious to the burning wreckage all around her, "I've travelled across time, space and goodness knows what else to get that thing back, and I can tell you that it weren't a first class flight. Now give me the I-Pod!"

With that she tackled Erik to the floor, seized the I-Pod and before the Phantom could react by killing her, she pressed a button on the Remote in her pocket and vanished from his clutches.

There was total silence – aside from the fire and disintegrating Opera House – as Erik stood alone in the soot and ashes.

Lifting his head up to the heavens he screamed out:

"IT'S OVER NOW THE MUSIC OF THE NIGHT!"

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**Sorry about the rushed ending. By the way, the whole irony thing in the first paragraph is to do with the fact that writing this sort of fanfic is entirely making characters do what they wouldn't normally do simply because I feel like it. **


	11. Christine were insane

**This is it guys. The final chapter ever...unless of course I get sudden inspiration and decide to put more up but I wouldn't hold your breath...and please don't kill me for finishing this off, especially a certain reviewer who knows exactly who they are. Its just not fair on you if I keep going when I've run out of things to make fun of. I would just like to thank everyone who's reveiwed or favourited or alerted this. Your lovely reviews make me smile and I'm going to miss them. By the way I'd love for this to hit 100 reviews...not hinting or anything...**

**Thank you to roughdiamond5, Mystik Genie, Avatarded, Skoteinos Metamfiezomai, PhantomoftheBasket and Raven Black and Jinks Loather for reviewing the last chapter.**

**The stated people committed from movies do not fit in with the time period but I'm afraid I cannot help that. This one is for Miss Mary Lou.**

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"I'm not crazy!" Christine screamed blood curdling as the men in white coats dragged her out of the building kicking and screaming. "There's a ghost who's really a guy but pretending to be an angel sent by my dead father! He's teaching me to sing and is killing people because he loves me."

The men hauling her off exchanged glances.

"This one's crazier than most!"

"Oh, I don't know…what about that girl who said her brother had been kidnapped by a Goblin King and forced her to complete a puzzle in 13 hours, which was really only about 5 in the real world, all because he loved her (1)? Or that girl who insisted that her husband was immortal and ferried souls so that his head didn't turn into a squid (2)? Or those kids who told us they'd been missing for months because a boy had whisked them off to a world with Indians and mermaids and where they never aged but a pirate had tried to kill them because they could fly (3)?"

The first shook his head. "Good thing that Vicomte chap warned us about this one. She might have ended up getting people hurt."

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_Meanwhile…_

Erik sighed dejectedly at his organ and shook his head. They'd taken away his light and inspiration. Now what was he supposed to do?

After a moment's silence over his loss Erik shook off the melancholy, decided that Christine had deserved it because she talked too much and having made the decision he drew a piece of paper towards him and dipped his quill in the inkwell. The words flowed easily as he started to draft the advertisement.

**Wanted**

A new assistant, student and inspiration to the

PHANTOM OF THE OPERA

Auditions for the part to be held in the Paris Opera House.

Then he added a date and time and slipped the envelope to Madame Giry.

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The next day a crowd had gathered on the stage. The girls were all milling around, practising scales and eyeing up the competition suspiciously. Some were even jotting down sabotage ideas onto pieces of paper, then cackling evilly and quite manically. It wasn't too surprising that many of the girls stayed well away from these ones. Suddenly a voice boomed the word "Silence" and it echoed around the room, sounding like it was coming from everywhere…nevertheless most of the girls immediately looked at Box 5.

There was a muffled 'dammit' as Erik realised they knew where he was hiding but he carried on regardless. "You all know why you're here…"

"To pay homage to the Phantom!" a fan girl squealed. "We love you Erik!"

Immediately Erik pressed a button and the girl disappeared down a trap door.

"Don't interrupt me," he said calmly. "In case you don't know, I have a space free for a person to be the object of my obsession. My previous student was apparently insane and has consequently been committed. Now line up on the stage."

The girls did this…those who didn't do it quickly enough disappeared through holes in the floor.

For a while Erik ummed and arhhed and eventually he eliminated several of the girls, saying they didn't look inspirational enough. Most trooped out at this point, muttering under their breath or crying uproariously…however one in particular refused to be eliminated in such a way and turned to face Box 5.

"How dare you get rid of us because of the way we look!" she screeched. "Hypocrite! You've got a hideously ugly deformity scarring your…" she didn't get to finish the sentence as, once again, a trap door opened and she fell in with a squawk. This time those assembled could hear her pain filled screams before it shut on them. The assembly gulped simultaneously and turned nervously to regard the Phantom's box.

"Don't go against my decision," he hissed, "that is, if you want to live." There was silence. "Now," he continued, "if you could all leave the stage then enter one by one."

The girls all gladly fled from the stage then started to jostle and push each other into some semblance of a queue.

"Who's first?" Erik shouted and a dazzling vision floated (literally) onto the stage, hair billowing beautifully in some unknown source of a breeze that was denied the other girls. Glitter sparkled in the air surrounding her.

"Name?"

"Ruby Diamond Sapphire Sparkle Amanda Jasmine…"

Erik hit the button before she could finish and shuddered as she disappeared from sight. "A Mary-Sue," he muttered in disgust and called the next one in.

This one came in dragging her feet. She was completely covered in rags and dirt and somehow still managed to look beautiful.

"Name?"

"I don't have a name. Both my parents died before they could give me one and my uncle was so cruel that he also never gave me one. I wasn't important enough."

"Erm…" Erik, momentarily thrown, checked his list. "You want to be my pupil because…?"

"Because none of the boys at school like me and I've never had a boyfriend and my life totally sucks."

Erik suddenly dived for the trapdoor button and the girl disappeared down the hole. Erik breathed a sigh of relief. Another minute and he would've accepted her because he felt sorry for her and fallen in love with her because of it.

"Another Mary-Sue," he muttered then shouted out: "If there are anymore Mary-Sues lurking back stage then leave!"

A whole group of girls trooped out muttering to themselves, a couple of them Christine look a-likes.

The Phantom rubbed the sides of his temples in exasperation.

"Next," he stated tiredly.

This time it was Meg's turn to step on stage. Within three steps she lifted a finger to point at Erik and screamed, "It's the Phantom of the Opera."

"Megan, if you wish to be my new pupil you must cease at pointing my whereabouts out to anyone in the vicinity," Erik told her.

Meg nodded quietly, so he continued.

"Why do you want to be my new protégé?"

Meg thought about it for a moment, "Because I want to upstage Christine for once."

Erik nodded to himself, impressed. "A competitive spirit. Just what I'm looking for."

"Also I've been absolutely fascinated with you since before I can remember. I'd follow you anywhere."

"Well that makes the kidnappings easier," Erik said to himself and glanced back down at Meg. "Would you end up swooning over rich Fops?"

The blonde shook her head, "I do think Raoul is very handsome but he put Christine in an asylum. I won't be making _that_ mistake."

Erik smiled. "Excellent."

At that moment, though, there was a crash and several sandbags fell from the rafters, each one falling directly next to Meg, and in some cases nearly hitting her. Not too surprisingly she screamed and ran off stage.

Madame Giry appeared.

"I have a message from the Opera Ghost," she announced, waving it in the air.

Erik stood up abruptly.

"That's impossible," he stated. "I'm right here."

That threw her.

"But…but the note…"

"Just read it," Erik groaned and sat back down.

"It says…bwah hah hah ha."

Erik blinked. "All right, you can go."

Madame Giry left and Erik was left muttering the message over to himself. "Bwah hah hah ha…brilliant! Why didn't I think of that?"

Finally he shook himself out of his reflections.

"Anyway…next."

The next girl was ordinary looking but had a sweet face. She kept her eyes demurely on the floor and stated that her name was Amy, she loved to sing, which was why she wanted to be his new pupil. She liked to learn but was very shy and had taken a lot of encouragement to even come and see him.

Erik was pleasantly surprised. Here was someone with character depth! Not only would she put up with criticism in her eagerness to learn (though he did hope she wouldn't keep bursting into tears – that might be a problem if she were that type of person) but he could also try and cure her of her stage fright. A challenge indeed! He was about to accept her on the spot when she suddenly fell through a trapdoor.

He frowned in bemusement and glanced suspiciously at the button, then at his finger. He hadn't done that…had he?

"Bwah hah hah ha!"

Growling Erik got to his feet.

"Whoever's doing that show yourself!"

A masked figure dropped onto the stage. She had shoulder length hair and was wearing a black cloak that swirled around her and a half mask.

"The audition was for replacement pupils not wannabe Phantoms!" Erik called down to her.

She bowed. "I'm sure we can reach some sort of agreement," she purred.

"Doubtful," Erik retorted. "I will not be upstaged like this. Get out of here."

The Phantom impostor glared up at him. "Very well, but remember," she rolled her eyes spookily, "I am always there inside your mind." Then she swept off the stage.

Erik sat back down and shut his eyes.

"Nutcase," he mumbled.

The next person walked on stage and Erik opened his eyes to look at them…and actually screamed.

"What the hell?!?!?!?!"

Raoul stood on stage looking sheepish in a Christine wig. "Well…"

"I don't even WANT to know!" Erik exploded. "Get off the stage! Get off the stage!"

Raoul stomped off with a toss of the hair.

"That's it," Erik muttered. "That is the absolute, positive, final straw." He stood up abruptly. "I quit!"

There was a chorus of disappointed and horrified cries from around the Opera House.

"No! No you can't!"

"Yes I most certainly can," he contradicted firmly and prepared to storm out of his box when someone stood in his way.

"I'm sorry but I cannot let you leave," the girl told him firmly. "If you leave then there won't be any 'Phantom of the Opera' and then I will have no way of writing 'What if' fanfictions and then I won't get lovely reviews telling me I'm great. So I'm afraid you have to stay."

Erik took a dominating step forward and loomed over her.

"Are you going to try and stop me?" he asked threateningly and reached for the PunJab Lassoe.

The girl stood frozen and undecided for a moment then grinned goofily.

"I love your voice. Even when you're threatening people it sounds sexy."

Erik shook his head in disgust. "Another fangirl," he muttered and pushed past her.

"No wait!" she yelled after him. "We can make a deal. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaait!"

But Erik continued onwards, completely ignoring her, leaving her kneeling on the floor wailing pitifully.

And so there were no more 'What if' fanfictions, until one worthy enough should pick up the pen that the shattered fangirl had thrown to the floor in despair, or until Erik returned to reside again in the Opera House.

As it was the impostor Phantom took Erik's place and began a huge hit, though was never as popular as Erik.

Christine began star singer in the asylum and took the lead in all the Christmas productions.

Raoul liked the wig so much he never took it off.

Meg recovered from her near death experience and became the new Phantom's herald…and Erik?

Erik is as Erik always was. A complete and utter mystery.

* * *

**(1) Labyrinth**

**(2) Pirates of the Carribean**

**(3) Peter Pan**


End file.
